100% CPU usage with Gateway 1803h. HELP PLEASE!!

For the last month or so, and for reasons which I can't pinpoint, my Gateway 1803h is suddenly and (seemingly) randomly going into states of 100% CPU load from which the only solution I can find is to reboot. Sometimes, it happens after only 20-30 minutes, other times it takes a day or 2 for them to manifest.

I am running it with the official Gateway Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade that came through the mail. I don't have much installed, and all virus and Malware scans fail to turn up any kinds of problems.

Is anyone having else having this problem? Does anyone have a solution? I would hate to have to re-install Windows 7 or have to go back to Vista, but I need a computer I can count on to NOT grind to a halt randomly, disrupting my work etc.

If anyone has ideas I'm all ears (eyes).

Thanks,

Ender666666

 

P.S. My BIOS is updated to the Acer 1410 1.3303 Version, I am Running 3 GB of RAM, and am running the standard 32-bit flavour of Windows 7, in case any of that matters.

 

What process(es) is doing this?

 

I can't tell.. When I open up the task manager, there doesn't appear to be any one task which is consistently showing high usage.

 

You want to look at processes, not tasks (applications). Click on the CPU button to have the highest usage ones appear on top of the list.

 

Yup, I know. But it's not one thing constantly using a high amount. It's constantly fluctuating and jumping around.

 

Well that is very strange. And I assume that this greatly affects performance? I would get RMClock to see what it says is going on with your CPU.

 

I'll check out RMClock.... never heard of it... and yes, it does drastically affect performance, forcing a reboot, and sometimes a long hold of the power button to do a forced power down.

I'm wondering if I'll have to just bite the bullet and re-install windows completely?

 

Just out of curiosity have you ran an antivirus program lately?

 

Yup, I have run daily scans with Microsoft Security Essentials since day one, scanned the computer with Malwarebytes's Anti-Malware, and just did an online scan with Trend Micro's Housecall. All come up clear.

 

Is there anyone out there who would care to try to help me solve this problem? It's really annoying being in the middle of something important and having my computer grind to a snail's pace, or virtually lock up completely.

 

I know you said that no one process was using all 100%, but could you look again and make a list of the processes that are using any of the CPU?

 

So after a lot of tweaking, I solved the problem.

It turns out that the issues were caused by installing a "Suggested" update for the Intel chipset which was an option in Windows update.

Once I went back to the latest version availible on the Gateway site, everything worked properly again.

 

Wow, congratulations!! Most people probably wouldn't think to check the chipset driver because chipset drivers, RAID drivers, etc. are uncommonly updated. I don't even know where you would get them or how safe they are to change. But you say they are updated for us through windows update?

 

Yup. It was an optional driver update.